A course of study in robotics education

An introduction, MCS 4981-E01 Directed Studies

Robofest is a wonderful, fun event. But remember the prize is
not the trophy. The prize is the interest instilled in young
people: in robotics, engineering, science and
teamwork. What skills do you need to integrate all this into a
year-around curriculum? Actually, quite a few.

Of course the professional educator for primary and secondary
students is already skilled in many areas. This is just a list
of topics where further development should be considered.

Why teach children to program, can you teach children to
program, and how do you teach children to program.? A
discussion of Seymour Papert's works about the pathway from
Piaget to robotics.

Understanding a programmer's ethic for children (and adults).
The Free Software Foundation, Open Source Software, and Open
Courseware. A discussion of work by John Stallman, Eric Raymond
and Sarah Flannery.

A little Unix, Knoppix, CUPS and Samba. An unconnected
laptop is just an expensive desktop that conserves space and
expends teacher time charging and replacing expensive
batteries. To support a classroom of students sharing files
and printing, a teacher needs to know how to build and run a
very low cost, simple network.

A little electronics. To run a safe classroom, a teacher
should understand the basics of ground-faults and how to
identify and obviate hazards in the inevitable tangle of
power cords.